No oil, no ‘protection’? Boko Haram massacre in Nigeria sees little reaction from US

Boko Haram has massacred thousands of civilians in Nigeria, but US officials' response towards the horrific crimes have been strangely muted. RT’s Manila Chan explores a potential link to oil, which the US no longer receives from Nigeria.

To many, the lack of
Washington's strive to aid the people of Nigeria – the biggest
African economy – seems to follow simple geostrategic logic: no
oil, no security support. While diverting funds to fight the
Islamic State in Iraq, the US seems unwilling to address Boko
Haram insurgents in Nigeria.

As US is trying to master shale gas exploitation; it has moved
away from some of its traditional trade partners, with Nigeria –
an OPEC-member state – becoming the first country to stop selling
oil to the US, statistics from the US Department of Energy
reveal. Nigeria was one of the top five suppliers to the US at
the height of trade, less than a decade ago supplying it with 1.3
million barrels of oil every day.

Yet despite Boko Haram’s territorial gains and promising outlook
for jihadi domination of the whole region, the US – and the world
– focuses on terror attacks in Europe and IS advances, completely
neglecting the imminent threat stemming from the Nigerian
terrorist network.

Some in Washington are already calling for strategy change.

"If we don't stop it in its tracks, we are destined for this
horrible group to not step back but to continue to be in
power," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.

“It is clear that the United States needs a comprehensive
strategy to address Boko Haram’s growing lethality,” Reps.
Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., and Peter King, R-N.Y., wrote in a letter
to Secretary of State John Kerry.

While the US spends an average of $8.2 million daily to battle
the Islamic State in Iraq in Syria, it is spending almost zero to
fight extremism in Nigeria.

Last year, Washington offered surveillance drones and 30
intelligence experts to help the Nigerian military rescue nearly
300 kidnapped schoolgirls. But in December, the Nigerian
government stopped Washington's minimal strive to train its
troops to fight Boko Haram.

"We regret premature termination of this training, as it was
to be the first in a larger planned project that would have
trained additional units with the goal of helping the Nigerian
Army build capacity to counter Boko Haram," State Department
spokesman Rodney Ford said in an email to the Military Times in
December.

"The US government will continue other aspects of the
extensive bilateral security relationship, as well as all other
assistance programs, with Nigeria," he said. "The US
government is committed to the long tradition of partnership with
Nigeria and will continue to engage future requests for
cooperation and training."

Boko Haram, which now
controls an area the size of Slovakia, became widely known to the
public last spring after kidnapping nearly 300 female students in
northeast Nigeria. The US Department of State designated Boko
Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organizations in November 2013,
despite it being operational from 2002.

In addition to mass murders in the ongoing and brutal campaign
against Nigeria's military, government, and civilian targets,
Boko Haram engages in massive oil theft from the resource-rich
Niger Delta. It is estimated that national losses from oil theft
rose from 10,000 barrels a day to 100,000 during the past five
years of the current Jonathan administration.

Nigeria, which relies on oil for 70 percent of government
revenues while fighting a major Islamist insurgency, is now
looking to alternative buyers to compensate the loss of US market
share. As a chain reaction, falling global oil prices are
threatening Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram and the overall
stability in West Africa.

China – which has become Africa’s biggest trading partner, with
some $160 billion worth of goods exchanges a year – is trying to
fill in the US-left vacuum in Nigeria. Even though China's demand
for raw materials has declined, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
announced in May a plan to double bilateral trade to $400 billion
by 2020. Stretching back to 2012, Beijing offered a $1.1 billion
loan to Nigeria and announced an investment of over $10 billion
for hydrocarbon prospecting close to Boko Haram’s zone of
influence.

Despite a promising future of China-Niger relations, security in
the African country is lacking. For now, Boko Haram is in
de-facto control of much of Borno state – including three border
crossings with Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.